In midwinter, when the deep snows come—if they come at all—how effectually the snow-birds enliven what might otherwise be a dreary outlook! On the projecting twigs above the huge drifts they gather, and, plunging down deeply into the snow, find seeds on many a sturdy weed that winter winds have not cast down. Their curious antics at such a time, so vividly described by Lockwood, make us forget that the day is cold, and, whatever the weather, I would rather be among the birds and see them close at hand—closer than is ever possible from my study windows.
Perhaps snow and snow-birds is too short a list of attractions for a winter-day outing. It is not for me; but I have never found it an all-inclusive list. There was never a snow yet, since the days of palæolithic man at least, that covered the tree-tops, and here the—
“Chic-chicadee dee! saucy note
Out of sound heart and merry throat”
is very sure to be heard, even with the mercury below zero. It accords well with the rippling twitter of the snow-birds, and completes the day’s attraction, or should do so. How tiresome our northern summers would be without a bit of winter, now and then, wherewith to contrast them. It is strange, but true, that when the occasional rambler takes an outing he must have a whole menagerie at his elbow or votes the woods in winter a dismal solitude. It is seldom that our snow-birds have only the titmouse for company. Given a blackberry thicket, and the white-throated sparrows will be there and how gloriously they whistle! Overstaying cat-birds, here in New Jersey, will be a surprise, and their midsummer drawling will sound strangely coming over snow-banks; but of late it is a feature of a winter walk. Winter, in fact, is overfull of sights and sounds.
October to March. For five months we have had snow-birds, and none the less a feature when the asters empurpled the hillsides than later when the fields were snow-bound. What of them, too, as summer comes on apace? Even above the wreckage of a wild winter, snow-birds can be cheerful. Never so tattered and torn the rank growths of the dead year but the snow-birds have reason to rejoice. If not at the present outlook, then they take a peep into futurity and sing of what will be. Probably our world looks its dreariest in March, as the darkest hour of night is just before the dawn, but happily the gloom does not weigh upon snow-birds, and to know how cheerfully they can sing one must hear them then. Their whole souls are in their utterances, and when a hundred or more ring out their gladness, March sunshine grows the brighter, the winds are tempered, and many a yellow leaf becomes a golden blossom.
Blue Jays.
“What is the most characteristic feature of November?” asked a shivering friend from town, as we stood with our backs to the rain-laden winds. “Birds and blossoms,” I replied. Of course he thought me trifling with him, and I asked if he expected me to say “rheumatism.”
What have birds and blossoms to do with such a dreary outlook? This was evidently the tenor of my friend’s thought, although he said nothing more. To him, as it was raining hard, the world was unutterably dreary, and he longed for the crackling blaze upon the andirons which he knew awaited us. In a few moments, as we skirted a bit of woodland, I remarked: “Blue jays are a feature of this month. See! here are half a dozen.” They were very tame and full of merry ways. They hunted the leaf-strewed ground and played bo-peep among the lower branches of the oaks. They screamed, laughed, chattered, and at times uttered that peculiar flute-like note which sounds so strangely in the woods, particularly when the silence of midwinter broods over all. My friend forgot that it was a dull November day.
These dandies in their cerulean suits can do no mischief now, and I love them for their vivacity. Their cunning shows out continually, and it needs not the dictum of the naturalist to learn that they are cousins of the crow. That they lived so largely upon eggs during May and June told against them at the time, and they were then the incarnation of fiendishness. Let the dead past bury its dead. One can not be happy who is ever cherishing dislikes, and I find the blue jay of the present sufficient unto November days. For my part, he is right welcome to the woods as he finds them. While the six merry jays were before us, I picked a violet, a bluet, and a daisy, and offered them as proof that November blossoms were not a myth. There are, I assured my friend, more than a score of flowers to be found by a little careful searching. What, then, if Summer’s glory has departed; if her skies are no longer overhead; her songs no longer fill the air; the odor of her blossoms no longer scent the breeze; is it not a poor wheel that can not spare one spoke? Nature is not so niggardly with her gifts in November as summer tourists, for instance, are apt to suppose. November is comparatively bare, it is true, and positively ragged; but it is not always safe to judge a man by his coat.